People come to your place for beer, good beer at the perfect temperature, with just the right clarity and carbonation and the right amount of head. If you are a restaurant owner or work in a bar or restaurant you know that having the beer right is the key to happy customers.

It is fortunate that many of the most often found issues with a beer draft system are easy to discover and correct. It is usually either the wrong temperature, the wrong pressure or its dirty.

Foamy Beer

Remember when you were in college or on spring break and you managed to get ahold of a keg? Instead of having a bit of head on the top and mostly delicious beer it was mostly foam?

Instead of being mostly liquid with just the right amount of creamy head on top, the glass is filled with wasteful foam. Here’s what might be wrong:

• The beer wasn’t poured correctly, see our coming article on pouring beer correctly which you probably already know.
• It’s too warm. The best thing is to lower the temperature. The temp of the cooling unit that holds your kegs should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 degrees to 40 degrees, same goes for glycol baths if you are using your glycol to dispense your beer as well.
• The beer hose had a blockage or is kinked. Be sure your hose is in good order.
• The pressure of the CO2 is set too high. Lower the pressure using your regulator.
• The tap is broken or is unclean. Remember clean your dispenser every few weeks with hot water and a brush after disassembling it.

 Cloudy Beer

The clarity of the beers is one of its most important characteristics. If your beer is coming out unusually clouded this could be why.

• Alternating Temps. In North Carolina it can get pretty hot, sometimes your kegs cooling system is fine in the morning but can’t keep up in the afternoon. This alternating warm and cold temperatures will negatively affect the clarity of your beer. You keg should live its whole life below 45 degrees.
• The beer is just old. Sometimes our less popular beers stick around a while, or took a while to be tapped in the first place. Keep an eye on the expirations dates or just like in the kitchen give it a date when you receive it.
• The beer lines are dirty. Clean the beer lines or have us come and do it.

Flat Beer

Flat beer, the devil’s own brew. Pouring a few flat beers will shortly result in your customers pouring out the door. Beer at its best has a certain carbonization that revives and rejuvenates the palate. Flat beer is just the opposite of foamy beer and often has the reverse cause.

• It’s too cold. The best thing is to raise the temperature. The temp of the cooling unit that holds your kegs should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 degrees to 40 degrees, same goes for glycol baths if you are using your glycol to dispense your beer as well.
• The pressure of the CO2 is set too low. Raise the pressure using your regulator.
• The glass is dirty. Grease breaks up carbonation, clean them well and rinse with cold water right before pouring.